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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32274 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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The vaccines were kinda sorta effective, but not in the way that I had hoped they would be

I mean, they strongly prevented severe illness and death, which is the only really important thing.

It became clear that there was not going to be a covid-free future and the best we could do was get vaxxed and get on with life

To my knowledge, current circulating covid variants are not causing excess mortality, so that's as good of an outcome as being covid-free? It seems a bit convenient and too-many-degrees-of-freedom that the vaccines prevented death, and then the variants independently became less deadly and now covid's not an issue, but I think that's what happened. So I don't think that our current situation is particularly non-ideal, or that the vaccines failed in some significant way.

I mean, they strongly prevented severe illness and death, which is the only really important thing.

This is immense amount of cope given the original claims of herd immunity and all the rest. The vaccines were supposed to make all the severe lockdowns and immense damage they brought upon our society "worth it". If people knew that the result of a year-long anxiety, isolation, interruption of education and so forth would be cutting deaths of very old and very ill people somewhat - and all that after the epidemic already took its toll year before, this would not be accepted. Hell, we have CDC advocating for adding COVID vaccine as mandatory schedule for kids. I think this decision is more about saving face for these experts than based on actual merit and prevention of severe illnesses among adolescents.

Hell, we have CDC advocating for adding COVID vaccine as mandatory schedule for kids. I think this decision is more about saving face for these experts than based on actual merit and prevention of severe illnesses among adolescents.

I won't be surprised if a requirement for the original COVID vaccine remains a part of immigration law for decades. Imagine marrying someone in the US after having come over to visit them dozens of times (vaccine-free), only to be told that you have to get a shot that has been obsolete for ten years... just so that some folks can save face about the political positions they took back in the day.

I mean, they strongly prevented severe illness and death, which is the only really important thing.

Really? Compare it to the vaccines for Measles, Polio, smallpox, or all the diseases that have fallen out of the public consciousness because they were (largely) eradicated due to vaccination campaigns. I was hoping for success at that scale, and the vaccines we have are not up to the task.

Considering coronaviruses in general are seasonal respiratory viruses and this is a new variant, spreading to humans either naturally from animals or from a lab escape of virus collected from animals, I think the flu (animal hosts, new variants, seasonal disease) is a closer analogue than measles - and seasonal flu vaccines don't successfully eradicate the flu, but are useful and successful despite that.

but are useful and successful despite that.

"Useful" is a far cry from effective at "the only really important thing"

so that's as good of an outcome as being covid-free?

Not when the Covid hawks spent two years arguing (baselessly) that "zero Covid" was within our reach if we just did this One Neat Trick.

Sure, they were wrong, but that doesn't make the vaccine not great!

which is the only really important thing.

There is no way I can believe this argument us being made in good faith. You know preventing transmission is another important thing that actually working vaccines do, and you know it was explicitly argued that the COVID vaccines do it as well.

The only reason we care about COVID-19 is severe illness and death. There are many other circulating coronaviruses that didn't cause unusually high rates of severe illness, and we do not care about those.

you know it was explicitly argued that the COVID vaccines do it as well.

(low confidence) That was argued, and seemed plausible at the time! It ended up not being true. But, since it still prevented severe illness and death, people who got the vaccine died a lot less! And most people in high-risk groups got the vaccine. Which is, I think, a success, since the one bad thing was prevented!

It's weird to imagine scenarios where covid doesn't mutate to become less deadly but the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission. Why couldn't it mutate to become more deadly? I vaguely think there's a trend to become less deadly to become more transmissible, but it's clearly not universal given the many deadly diseases of the past.

Why couldn't it mutate to become more deadly?

It could, but its a random process and if it mutates to kill you quicker it prevents its own spread.

The only reason we care about COVID-19 is severe illness and death.

And an important part of preventing it, is preventing transmission, therefore lowering the severity of the illness was not the only important thing for a vaccine.

That was argued, and seemed plausible at the time!

Why did they argue it, if lowering the severity of the illness was the only important thing?

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